Category: News stories

Open Book interview with Marsha Skrypuch

onestepMarsha Forchuk Skrypuch is the award-winning author of historical fiction, nonfiction and picture books for children and young adults. Pajama Press has just released her new book, One Step at a Time: A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way, which continues the true story of Tuyet, Continue reading “Open Book interview with Marsha Skrypuch”

Brantford Summer Writing Workshops

The brochure for SWW 2010 is now available online here.

If you’re interested in attending, do send in your registration and cheque soon to ensure you get a spot. Anyone who has participated in kidcrit, Humber or has been to SWW before does not have to submit a writing sample. Just note that on the form.

I am thrilled with the line-up. We have kids’ publishers and adult publishers, kids’ writers and an adult writer. We also have an agent who does both. The most popular aspect of SWW are the blue pencil sessions. These are 10 minute face to face opportunities with publishers, editors and an agent. Think speed dating for writers. Every participant will have several blue pencils.

I am also thrilled that Diane Kerner, director of publishing for Scholastic Canada is presenting. She will be giving everyone who wants it a flash assessment. Ie, she’ll look at a cover letter and the first page of a manuscript and give her brutal assessment of how she would deal with it if it were a submission. People can stay anonymous, but they can put their names on their submissions if they want. She will be giving the flash assessments to everyone at once and we will all have a packet of the same submissions. This will provide invaluable insight into the submission process and also give a behind-the-editor’s-desk view of that process.

A caveat: if everyone on my tentative list of attendees does indeed attend, we will only have about 4 open spots. So send in your application asap.

I am holding Stolen Child!

I was thrilled to receive my first advance copy of Stolen Child in the mail yesterday. It was an emotional roller coaster to write this novel. It was inspired by my late mother-in-law’s WWII memories in Ukraine.

The novel will be coming out on Feb 1, 2010.

Here’s a bit more about the book:

In an effort to boost the birth rate of the master race, the Nazis instituted a frightening program called Lebensborn (the Fount of Life). SS soldiers were encouraged to breed with females deemed to be of racially valuable stock. Some were German, others were women and girls of captive nations and in 1942, an even more sinister aspect of the Lebensborn program was established. The Nazis believed that there were lost seeds of the Aryan nation amidst the Slavs. In an effort to reclaim these supposed lost Germans, children were stolen from their parents and shipped to Lebensborn homes for further testing and brainwashing.

In Stolen Child, Marsha Skrypuch imagines the story of twelve-year-old Nadia Krawchuk, who has immigrated with her parents to Canada, but her re-location triggers disturbing dreams and ultimately vivid memories of another family and a girl she recalls as Gretchen. This is a powerful, moving and disturbing tale of one of the lesser known horrors of Hitler’s racial obsession.

And an excerpt:

Dark shadows dance on the scuffed white walls. Someone else’s fingernail scratches are etched around the glass doorknob and there are tiny splinters of wood fraying from the door itself. For a few trembling moments I look out at the dirt-trampled snow far below my window. Why am I a prisoner in this house?

My throat is raw from screaming, and my fingernails are bloodied from scrabbling at the doorknob. I lie on the wooden floor and stare up at the bare lightbulb. I can hear nothing but my own gasping breaths.

Shuffling. A struggle. A child screams down the hallway. A door slams shut.

Another stolen child.